Winds of Change? Gender Segregation in Music Education and Production in Italy

Abstract

Gender typing of musical instruments is one of the main factors limiting the educational, occupational, personal and social experiences available to women in different music worlds, althought today women are formally acknowledged the right to access also educational and professional paths typically associated with masculinity. In practice, however, gender stereotypes in music are still diffused and influent, although to a lesser extent than in the past. This chapter discusses gender typing of wind instruments in contemporary Italy, drawing on the analysis of quantitative and qualitative evidences. In the last decades the traditional association of wind instruments with masculinity has considerably declined in the case of woodwind instruments (to the point of reversal for the flute), while it persists in the case of wind instruments and, remarkably, in the instrumental jazz courses. Gender typing seems to be even stronger in the music job market, where gender segregation persists both at the horizontal and vertical level. Female wind players refer of similar experiences contributing to build self-confidence and leadership in a field still mostl masculine. Those experiences, however, have an occasional character related to the specific path of each musician, while only recently a series of measures are being developed to raise awareness on the issue of gender segregation and promote a greater gender balance in music. Academic research might play an important role in disseminating reliable documentation of past and present activities of female musicians operating in different music worlds and evidence on the persistency of different forms of gender segregation, often hidden behind formal equality of opportunities.